Donald Trump's comments on the North Carolina 'bathroom law' shouldn't have been a surprise

On Thursday's "Today" show, Donald Trump surprised people by
expressing opposition to North Carolina's "bathroom
law."

That's the new law restricting use of bathrooms in
government facilities to people of the same biological sex,
meaning that many transgender people will have to use bathrooms
that conflict with their expressed gender.

Trump's stance shouldn't have been a surprise. If you were
expecting Trump to just take whatever was the most hateful
position available, you've misunderstood him.

First, you need to remember that Trump has almost no core
ideological views. The only deeply held opinion he has about
bathrooms is that they should be coated in marble and brass.

Trump doesn't like losers, but he does like deals. And I'm
sure he's convinced that, if he were governor of North Carolina,
then he would have made a great bathroom deal that made
everyone happy. In Trump's North Carolina, there would be so
much peeing,
people of all genders would be bored of peeing.

The most interesting lesson from Trump's statement today is
this: Maybe trans panic doesn't have the currency with
Republican voters that social conservatives hoped and LGBT
advocates feared.

From the president's birth certificate to the Mexican
government sending us its "rapists" to Muslim 9/11
"celebrations" in Jersey City, Trump is happy to play to
people's unfounded fears. Yet he doesn't think appealing to
bathroom panic is a good play.

That's a sentiment shared by South Dakota Gov. Dennis
Daugaard, a Republican who
vetoed a similar bill on the grounds that there was not "any
pressing issue" of bathroom conflicts. But it's not shared by Ted
Cruz, who
says that it's "stark-raving nuts" to let people who
were born male "be alone in bathrooms with little
girls."

Trump must have known that Cruz would hit him on this. We'll see
if he's right in his apparent judgment that his voter base
is motivated by fear of Muslims and resentment of Mexicans, but
view transgender people as a non-threat, and wouldn't want to
risk the economy by picking a needless fight with them.

So far, he's been a pretty accurate reader of the average
Republican voter's id.